Putting Excuses

It is human nature to find a scapegoat when things go wrong. In putting we are too ready to blame our poor performance on outside agencies.

Deceiving Yourself

Self-deception may ease your disappointment, but the truth is that any failure is invariably down to your lack of skill.

No More Excuses

Putting has never been easier for today’s golfer. It is difficult to imagine what future changes (other than repairing spike marks) can be made to reduce the challenge on the greens.

Ben Hogan campaigned for a larger hole in order to de-emphasise the importance of putting, but the idea for a change in hole size was not supported.

Modern Putting

Consider for a moment how you are benefiting from the myriad of improvements over the years that have reduced the skill level of putting.

GREEN

First Lawnmower 1830

On occasion the surface of the green may be uneven and the ball may bump off line. However, for the most part you will putt on greens that are infinitely superior to earlier times.

Byron Nelson late in life described the invention of the lawnmower as the biggest advance in the game of golf over the past 50 years.

New grass cultivars and better maintenance practices have largely removed the unfair challenges that former golfers faced on the green.

EQUIPMENT

Here you have no excuse. If you putt with a putter that is not custom-fitted for length, lie, and possibly loft, you are denying yourself one of the easiest ways to improve your stroke.

There may not be one best putter on the market, but there will be a putter best suited to you that will help you aim more accurately and that will allow you to putt with greater success.

BALL

With the large investment in ball technology, it is safe to say that there are no bad balls when it comes to putting. The feel of each ball may be slightly different, but all of them will roll true. The days of balls with out-of-centre cores are confined to history.

Find a ball that you like and stick with it.

RULES

The Rules of Golf are continually changing and at the same time making putting easier.

For example, when Bobby Jones played, you weren’t allowed to fix a pitch mark or clean your ball on the green. If there was mud on it, you just had to deal with it.

(A rule was eventually introduced in 1960 allowing you to fix pitch marks and lift and clean your ball on the green.)

Find yourself in casual water and the only relief was to place the ball behind the water.

When it came to a loose impediment you could only remove it if it was both within a club-length of your ball and within a 20 yard radius of the hole.

No More Putting Excuses

Blaming your poor putting on outside agencies is grasping at straws. If you really want to improve your putting, look no further than yourself and what you can do to become a better putter.